The Autumnal Equinox is fast approaching us, indicating a time of change, of leaving one season of growth, sunshine and expansion, into one of harvest, completion and compost. It is a time of equal light and equal darkness. This is a time of leaving the warmth and moving toward the cold. It is a time of gratitude for the harvest in our lives, whether it be from the summer's crops or from our life's journey... it is a good time to gather together and focus on the gratitude for the blessings we have now.
If you would like some info on a few Autumnal Equinox Rituals and Ceremonies for the Autumn Equinox here are some ideas!
Hold a Harvest Dinner
Being a time of harvest, call upon your loved ones to join you in a harvest dinner. Gather a cornucopia of food to share in community and tribe to celebrate your bounty, both in food as in relationships. When you gather, ask everyone to bring something to share at your meal, honoring the bounty for all. Also, ask each person to bring a prayer of gratitude or words of gratitude to share as you break bread together. This again focuses on your inner, personal bounties and help you anchor in the riches on all levels, mental, emotional, spiritual and physically.
Create a Harvest Altar
Create an Altar to honor the beginning of a new cycle of Autumn with the theme of Harvest, Gratitude, Completion and Composting. Draw from Mother Nature's fruits of pumpkins, gourds and corn stalks to represent the harvest, along with any other items that represent harvest and abundance.
Place prayers of gratitude upon the altar, in written words and messages.
Letting Go - On another piece of paper, write out what you need to honor regarding endings, deaths and things you are done with and want to leave in the past. Place on the altar for Spirit to take away and to bless you with wisdom and harvest from the experience.
Burn Away the Old with a Fire Ceremony - Clean away the dead and completed
Once you have written out experiences, feelings, patterns and old ways of being that need to die, place them in an urn or cast iron skillet, or fire pit with the intention of sacrificing them through the element of fire back to Spirit. If using a cast iron skillet, place a large pile of epsom salts in the skillet and soak in grain alcohol. Then (safely away from burnable items) set on fire and place the paper and energy of the experiences you desire to let go into the fire. As the fire burns, know your prayers are heard and the endings are being burned away. When the fire goes out, know it is complete!
Re-flect, Re-store, Re-set, Re-Vision, and Re-Energize Your Intentions
Now is a time of going within to appreciate where you are in life, to give thanks, and to receive the blessings that are within every part of your life. As you sit in this inner place of receiving, you will more clearly know your heart's desires. You will more clearly honor the rhythms of your life, and the seasons and cycles that life takes.
After you have harvested your garden and said thanks for what you have, it is a good time for reflection of what you have grown in this past cycle, what fruits came to bear, what didn't grow, and what you composted, giving you insight and wisdom in planning your spring garden — physically and metaphorically.
After the harvest is the composting, the digging up of the old garden and letting die what must die. In doing so you can re-set and re-vision from a place of greater clarity.
What do you need to nurture and restore? What fertilizer or food is needed to grow a better garden next season? Just as the ground needs rotation of crops or to lie fallow at times, so does our life path. We need to bring in additional minerals, or energy to support new and better crops next time around.
Take time to reflect so you can gain wisdom from your past cycle, from what you did wonderfully well, and from what you need guidance on.
The Scorpio Full Moon during the cycle of Taurus Sun brings the celebration of Wesak, or celebration of the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death. This is a time of the Christ gathering the entire Spiritual Hierarchy for meditation and invocation of the spiritual forces of the heavens to bless and heal humanity.
The Center for Shamanic Education and Exchange is dedicated to supporting the preservation, exchange, dissemination and evolution of shamanic wisdom. To date they have supported projects to benefit the Shipibo of the Amazon basin in Peru, the Q'ero in the Andes of Peru, and the Huichols in Mexico. The work of the CSEE continues to expand to support indigenous people in honoring their ancient, cultural wisdom.
Please consider a tax-deductible gift of $795.00 to CSEE, to help further our mission to empower shamanic based indigenous tribes to protect and value their ancestral wisdom and and receive one (1) of 25 LIMITED edition signed giclee' prints by artist Katherine Skaggs of Shipibo Shaman, Herlinda Agustin Fernandez.
To read more about Herlinda’s legacy go HERE:
If you’d like to donate via check please email info@shamaniceducation.org to make arrangements
Shamanism is the oldest spiritual tradition on earth; a present, reciprocal and reverent way of being with Nature. This indigenous wisdom is vital to the holistic health and sustainability of humanity and is being threatened with extinction. CSEE is dedicated to supporting the preservation, exchange, dissemination and evolution of this wisdom.
CSEE works with shamanic elders around the world to develop educational documentaries and products that preserve and share shamanic teachings.
We provide educational scholarships to future shamanic leaders of the Shipibo tribe in the Amazon basin, empowering them to bridge both the modern world and their traditional shamanic upbringing. All CSEE scholarship recipients accept educational support with the agreement that they will return to work in their home villages for at least two years once their education is complete to help protect and sustain their cultural traditions and knowledge and provide leadership and economic stability to their communities.
The Center believes in making shamanic wisdom and practices available to all. We support direct cultural exchange between shamans around the world to share unique and universal wisdom on healing, sustainable and balanced living and encourage new forms of shamanism pertinent to the modern world. We provide westerners the opportunity to engage directly with indigenous leaders and healers through educational programs and cultural presentations.
The MISSION of CSEE is to preserve the shamanic wisdom, culture, practice and traditional ways of life of indigenous people worldwide.
Our VISION is to bring shamans and healers of different cultures together to both stimulate their own practices as well as encourage new forms of shamanism to emerge.
We SUPPORT this vision with the creation of events, programs, products and documentary media that promote the continuation of indigenous song, dance, healing practices, ceremonies, arts and crafts and teachings.
Our HOPE is that by documenting, honoring and supporting indigenous people, we will re-acquaint the world with its shamanic inheritance and help indigenous people recognize the value of their unique cultures.
The Center for Shamanic Education and Exchange is a 501(c) 3 non-profit # 20-8909687.
If you are like myself and many I know, February has been a month of letting go of the old. As it has all too often been stirred up and challenging us in how well we feel, how centered we are, and how easily we move in our life rhythms. Old patterns are vibrating until they crack and fall away. The process of their loud and often uncomfortable reappearance beckons us to respond in ways that eliminate the fog, the clutter and the pain of the past.
There are many articles on the web describing the physical symptoms of the Shift taking place upon this planet, and within our own bodies and psyches. Headaches, extreme fatigue, aches and pains, brain fog, inability to stay on top of the daily flow. Not only are we being bombarded by the energies of amazing planetary alignments, we are being radiated by massive solar flares and expulsions. These radiations are changing the frequency on the planet, of our Earth and of our own energy and physical bodies. This intense radiation truly is increasing the evolution of our bodies and our species. All reports spiritual and scientific lead us to the conclusion we are shapeshifting from a carbon based species to a crystaline silicone based expression. This is the shift from mortal to immortal, if we can make it.
It is very exciting, yet also very challenging, as it is for any X-men in accepting our greater potential. We are rapidly transforming and we need all the support we can get.
Here are a few tips to support you along your process of transformation:
We are in a new time and new patterns are required. What would it be like if you hopped off the linear greed model and invoked the new pattern of infinite supply. We have always been taken care of but have not always remembered or experienced this. We are being asked to care for ourselves in new ways, and to invoke new models of well being. Being with yourself, and you will then see how to bring that into your family, and into your community. Simply live it, and live simply and you will find your support amidst the shift.
If you need support, ask! If you are being challenged, here are a few tips for managing the shift.
And it seems with my decision to go back to the jungle this coming November (2013), I was finally able to finish the painting Herlinda, which I began in 2011 in honor of Herlinda Agustin Fernandez, a Shipibo Shaman and healer. She was known for her singing of powerful ceremonial healing songs, known as icaros. She passed in late 2010 after my last trip to the jungle (of Peru, past Puculpa in the upper Amazon region). (more…)
Serapis Bey is an Ascended Master of Ancient Wisdom and a member of the Great White Brotherhood (a group of enlightened beings who serve humanity in its evolutionary path).
When I was asked to paint Serapis Bey, I could feel his ancient Atlantean and Egyptian energies that I recognized too well. I am reminded that he initiated me into the Temples of Sacred Fire when he was a high priest of Atlantis, who migrated to Egypt at the time Atlantis was destroyed. Serapis also had incarnations as the Egyptian Pharaoh Amenhotep III and other famous incarnations as Confucious, Plato and Lucious Anneus Seneca to name a few. (more…)
Ascended Master White Eagle is a wise, gentle Ascended Master of the Brotherhood of Light (also known as the Great White Brotherhood of Ascended Masters who are here to guide humanity in its evolution and ascension.) He has come to support you in all your processes of ascension, and of living your life in alignment πwith your higher frequencies.
When I sat to paint White Eagle, I asked him to open a portal to his wisdom, his love and his message to you. It was apparent this energy and wisdom was universal and beyond the personal. When I asked White Eagle to tell me more about the “12 Rivers of Light” he first told me “12 Tribes of Israel”. (more…)
Parkinson’s Disease, Breast Cancer, Diabetes, Depression… Despite remarkable advances in modern medicine, our society still struggles to effectively treat these and other common illnesses.
Witness the story of eight brave souls as they leave the developed world behind in search of deeper answers. Living in seclusion for one month in the heart of the Amazon jungle, these men and women take part in the powerful healing practices of Peru’s indigenous medicine men, working with centuries-old plant remedies and spiritual disciplines. In their most desperate hour, these patients are forced to confront not only their physical ailments, but their own spiritual and psychological barriers in the process. Five will return with real results, two will return disappointed, and one won’t come back at all.
Enjoy this documentary in Katherine’s studio. Stay afterward to share your response, ask questions, and find ways to bring this wisdom into your life. Katherine will share her experience with the indigenous shamanic medicine culture of the Amazon jungle, her healing, as well as opportunities to learn more.
For the last six years, Katherine Skaggs has been on her own shamanic journey and resonates deeply with the teachings and experiences shared in the film Sacred Science. She has been to the Peruvian jungle and worked with the Shipibo in the northern Amazon area. During these three 7-10 day trips, Katherine has worked with the sacred plants and plant dieta shamanic trainings, which are more like initiations. She is preparing for another trip to the jungle November 2013, for another dieta.
Cost $8 – Please RSVP or to Register
It is time to Dream A New Dream for ourselves, through the love and beauty of our hearts.
Allow the beauty of your enlightened heart of unconditional love and wisdom to take you inside and remember who you are, to bring that enlightened heart energy into your heart/mind and to dream and speak a new dream... one filled with only love, light, hope, beauty and amazing joy for life. Be centered in the peace that emanates from this beauty. There is nothing to do but dream from the place of the divine heart within ourselves. And when we do, we must know that only love can be born and expanded. Let this Being of Love give light and love to you and to your dreams.
By Katherine SkaggsOwl Medicine had been coming my way for months. First someone gifted me a feather at a shamanic retreat. I was so surprised and humbled by her gift. She told me she brought the feather as she thought it her medicine. After we met she was clear it was time this beautiful feather was to be passed to me, as I was awakening to my path to hold owl medicine blessings.
At the time of this story I am to tell you below, I had already begun my advanced shamanic practices with my teachers in Santa Fe. I am very curious as to where my bird allies are and the medicine they want to bring me. And so the story unfolds...
I had already had an amazing week of magic with my friend Denise Rodgers, a soul sista, shamanic priestess and partner in Sophia Psychic Readings and Healing Sessions. Denise lives in Texas, but comes here to work (and play) with me periodically. We just finished a cycle of readings and healings in Fort Collins. Somehow this great success propelled us both to two nights of shamanic ceremony in Santa Fe, a seemingly perfect culmination of the great fun, love and healing we had shared in this last week's cycle.
by Katherine Skaggs
It is always a good idea to connect yourself to heaven, and to earth to be able to stay centered in these fast moving times. This visualization supports you energetically connecting up to the energies of the Cosmos and the vast wisdom, guidance and support available to you there, as well as connecting deep into Mother Earth, who has her own magic, wisdom, guidance and healing energies to support you living in a this world.
The Tree of Life Visualization is just what you need to anchor these energies into your physical body, as well as all your energy bodies, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. This is a practice that supports the spiritual information highway sinking deep int your very core essence and recalibrating you, the soul, into her light body, all the while waking up your very spiritual DNA.
A six month course February 25th through July 28th
Join Visionary Artist and Shamanic Practitioner Katherine Skaggs in creativity and introductory shamanic practices for personal empowerment, transformation, and fun!
by Katherine Skaggs
The Divine Feminine Taurus Full Moon energy November 10th comes on the eve of an auspicious spiritual portal day of 11-11-11. The 11-11-11 date is a day considered to be a portal to awakening for the masses of humanity, activating our very DNA. It is considered an encoded time portal that is unlocking the genetic codes that have been hidden from our conscious awareness for thousands of years. The awakening of these DNA encoding in turn is assisting us in remembering who we really are as spiritual beings having a physical experience. We really are being given an energetic assistance to "Waking Up!"
by Katherine Skaggs
It's September 7th, and I am feeling the last days of summer as the air gets cool, crisp and the leaves begin to fall to earth. The morning walks in the foothills signal change in every way possible, with the changing of the summer green grasses to autumn gold, to the absolute cool morning air that requires a light jacket or sweater.
The Earth Mother is shouting CHANGE through our annual seasonal shifting. Yet, that is not all, as we see a multitude of other signals of intense and massive change. There are too many changes to name, coming through our culture and the landscapes around the world. The aquarian age is continuing to crack the status quo and realign how we do life.
As summer intensifies, we are being reminded of great beauty and abundance all around. The healing energies of the sun, the rains and the green plants surround us, giving great sami (chi) to heal our minds, bodies and spirits.
We have just emerged from a series of three eclipses, and intense configurations in the heavens that are assuring our evolution and growth. The frequencies are changing in our bodies and environments, causing massive shift. How have you been navigating this time of death and rebirth? Have you found yourself cleaning your closets, your bodies, your homes, as well as your relationships? Most likely one of these areas has surfaced with a need to let go, shift and rebirth.
